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richardlang
Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Location: Gangnam
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Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:55 pm Post subject: NYT: Michelle Obama's roots, a Complex Path From Slavery |
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In First Lady�s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery
WASHINGTON � In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.
In his will, she is described simply as the �negro girl Melvinia.� After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.
In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.
Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.
Viewed by many as a powerful symbol of black advancement, Mrs. Obama grew up with only a vague sense of her ancestry, aides and relatives said. During the presidential campaign, the family learned about one paternal great-great-grandfather, a former slave from South Carolina, but the rest of Mrs. Obama�s roots were a mystery.
Now the more complete map of Mrs. Obama�s ancestors � including the slave mother, white father and their biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields � for the first time fully connects the first African-American first lady to the history of slavery, tracing their five-generation journey from bondage to a front-row seat to the presidency..........
The rest of the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/us/politics/08genealogy.html?_r=1 |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:37 am Post subject: |
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Man! And all this time I would never have thought she might have slaves as ancestors... |
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ropebreezy
Joined: 27 Aug 2009
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:20 am Post subject: |
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Who cares |
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richardlang
Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Location: Gangnam
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:33 am Post subject: |
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I posted this for those who appreciate history. History is infinitely overdetermined. This article is a good read about how it is such. It doesn't matter your persuasion, political or otherwise. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Use and abuse of history as politics by other means. |
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Triban
Joined: 14 Jul 2009 Location: Suwon Station
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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I would not have bought Michelle Obama for $475.
And no, I am not racist.
I just think she sucks. |
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proustme
Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Location: Nowon-gu
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher wrote: |
Use and abuse of history as politics by other means. |
It's news report on her history. It wasn't published by Michelle Obama or the White House. If it were, what you said would be true. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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It is the New York Times. Spare me the apolitical disclaimers. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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Uncle Tom's cabin and Huckleberry Finn were good reads. |
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ropebreezy
Joined: 27 Aug 2009
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 5:05 am Post subject: |
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richardlang wrote: |
I posted this for those who appreciate history. History is infinitely overdetermined. This article is a good read about how it is such. It doesn't matter your persuasion, political or otherwise. |
It's too political of an article to really be of any worth as a truly objective commentary on history. |
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proustme
Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Location: Nowon-gu
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 5:08 am Post subject: |
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Gopher wrote: |
It is the New York Times. Spare me the apolitical disclaimers. |
Weak paranoid, glib argument. This article is not political. It's about a Black person's family roots. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:42 am Post subject: |
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No, it is not. It is not about "a Black person's family roots." It is about the sitting first lady, married to a president whose politics this newspaper shares -- and validates and advances in its pages.
Get real. |
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kabrams
Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Location: your Dad's house
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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Triban wrote: |
I would not have bought Michelle Obama for $475.
And no, I am not racist.
I just think she sucks. |
Dude, seriously?
Why not make some Holocaust jokes, while you're at it. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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kabrams wrote: |
Triban wrote: |
I would not have bought Michelle Obama for $475.
And no, I am not racist.
I just think she sucks. |
Dude, seriously?
Why not make some Holocaust jokes, while you're at it. |
Who cares. |
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Triban
Joined: 14 Jul 2009 Location: Suwon Station
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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kabrams wrote: |
Triban wrote: |
I would not have bought Michelle Obama for $475.
And no, I am not racist.
I just think she sucks. |
Dude, seriously?
Why not make some Holocaust jokes, while you're at it. |
Hmm, why so serious? Like I stated, I think she isn't an awesome person, how is that being racist? To continue...
Holocaust? More like LOLocaust?
(Disclaimer: Sorry if I offended anyone besides kabrams.) |
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